1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a microscope apparatus for detecting transmitted light or reflected light from a specimen or fluorescence produced in the specimen, when the surface of the specimen is scanned with illumination light.
This application is based on Japanese Patent Application No. 2005-330120, the content of which is incorporated herein by reference.
2. Description of Related Art
A known scanning laser microscope in the related art includes a stimulus optical system for applying an optical stimulus to a specimen.
For example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application, Publication No. Hei 10-206742 discloses a scanning laser microscope including a first laser scanning apparatus and a second laser scanning apparatus. The first laser scanning apparatus scans observation laser light, which irradiates the specimen for performing fluoroscopy, within a plane perpendicular to the optical axis. The second laser scanning apparatus moves stimulus laser light for irradiating a plane at an arbitrary position in the specimen with the stimulus laser light.
Another known microscope apparatus in the related art is provided with an observation optical system including a mercury lamp, a first stimulus optical system including a mercury lamp, and a second stimulus optical system including a laser light source. In this apparatus, different optical systems are used for the optical stimulus according to the type of specimen and so on. For example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application, Publication No. Hei 10-123427 discloses a microscope apparatus that can observe the state of a specimen by displaying on a TV monitor or the like fluorescence produced in the specimen and collected via an observation optical system.
However, when the region to which the stimulus is to be applied is large, the scanning laser microscopes of the related art suffer from the problem that it takes a long time to scan the stimulus region, and thus it is not possible to capture a rapid response.
In addition, because it is not possible to move the observation plane relative to the depth direction of the specimen, they also suffer from the problem that it is not possible to observe the interior of the specimen.